Chapter 2 - Lockdown and Lies

While I went to work, fingers flying across my keyboard, tearing through lines of encrypted code and proxy addresses, the reality of the situation was violently unfolding in the interrogation room down the hall.

Jamal had demanded to see Brittany. Because he had fully cooperated and surrendered her devices, the FBI allowed it, watching through the two-way mirror.

Later, Jamal would tell me exactly what happened in that room.

He walked in to find Brittany crying, not with remorse, but with the frustrated indignation of a child who had been caught stealing candy. My parents were sitting next to her, patting her hands, still operating under the delusion that they could bully their way out of a federal crime.

“Jamal!” Brittany sobbed, reaching for him. “Tell them to let me go! You know the chief of police, call him! Tell them this is a mistake!”

Jamal did not reach back. He stood by the door, his face a mask of absolute devastation.

“I checked the accounts, Brittany,” he said. His voice was hollow, stripped of all the warmth and love he had showered on her for five years.

Brittany froze. The tears instantly stopped.

My mother scoffed. “Jamal, now is not the time to worry about money! Your wife is being harassed by Maddie’s deranged husband!”

“You mortgaged my clinic,” Jamal said, ignoring my mother entirely. His eyes were locked on Brittany’s pale face. “You forged my signature on a second mortgage for the house. You liquidated my mother’s retirement fund that I was managing. One point two million dollars, Brittany. Gone.”

My father stood up, puffing out his chest. “Now see here, Jamal, whatever financial disagreements you two have can be settled later—”

“She sold out her country for a gambling debt, Richard!” Jamal roared, slamming his fist against the metal table. The sound echoed like a gunshot, making all three of them flinch.

“She didn’t just ruin me,” Jamal continued, his voice shaking with fury. “She tried to ruin Maddie. The sister she has treated like garbage her entire life. She brought a weapon of espionage into a room full of military officers to save her own skin. You are a monster, Brittany.”

“I didn’t know what it was!” Brittany screamed, panicking as she realized her husband was not going to save her. “They just said it was a recording device! They said they just wanted to hear if Maddie’s company was going to invest in a specific tech stock! It was just insider trading, Jamal! Everybody does it!”

“You just confessed to federal conspiracy on a recorded line,” Jamal whispered, disgusted.

He turned around and walked out the door, leaving her screaming his name. My parents sat in stunned, horrified silence as the reality of their golden child’s actions finally shattered their delusions.

Back in the library, I hit the Enter key with a triumphant crack.

“Got them,” I breathed, staring at the screen.

Agent Reynolds leaned over my shoulder. “You cracked the proxy chain?”

“They were using a sophisticated VPN tunnel, but they made a mistake,” I explained, pointing at a string of code. “They routed the final handshake through an old legacy server that Vanguard acquired two years ago and decommissioned. It didn’t recognize the protocol, so it logged the true origin IP in the error cache before bouncing it back.”

“Where is the origin server?” David asked, stepping behind me and resting his hands on my shoulders.

“It’s not in Eastern Europe,” I said, looking up at Reynolds. “It’s local. The signal was being beamed to a server rack located in a luxury penthouse in downtown D.C. Three miles from the Vanguard headquarters.”

Reynolds smiled. It was a terrifying, predatory smile.

“They’re close,” she said. “They want the data fast so they can act on the market on Monday morning.”

“Agent Reynolds,” David said calmly. “My men are already geared up. We have a vested interest in neutralizing a threat that targeted Naval Special Warfare personnel.”

Reynolds looked at the SEAL commander. “We could use a tactical assist, Commander. But we need to make sure the buyers are actually in that penthouse.”

I looked at the black box sitting inside the Faraday cage. An idea—a brilliant, dangerous idea—sparked in my mind.